


portions for foxes

by hotknife666 (hotdammneron)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, gucci depression sweatsuit, it is in your best interest to find a way to be VERY fucking tender, travis konecny has adhd. nolan patrick is wife material. thank you.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 03:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18932914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdammneron/pseuds/hotknife666
Summary: Patty’s got the TV on but the volume’s all the way down, as low as it can go without muting, like he always does. He said something about it once, stoned off his ass, about how it’s rude to the people in the show to actually mute it, and Trav laughed so hard he hit his head on the coffee table falling off the couch.Nothing’s that funny, tonight, but. Y’know. Whatever.





	portions for foxes

**Author's Note:**

> the other day i thought "why is every rilo kiley song about the flyers" and then had a breakdown about it. let's TALK about our friends who lost the war and all the novels that are yet to be written about them! title from portions for foxes by rilo kiley because i'm always like this. 
> 
> this is a birthday present to myself. 
> 
>  
> 
> twitter is https://twitter.com/blghorny

They make it into April. Like, bare minimum, just the start of April. It’s fine, really. 

(Trav can’t make it sound convincing, even in his head.)

 

The boys go out, most of them at least. Claude only comes with to hold together the last semblances of “captainly leadership” and “getting shitfaced” and “team morale” in the face of so much misery - god knows he’d rather be home, dogs and wife and all that. But the rest of them, yeah, they go out. 

Patty straight up goes home without talking to anybody, yeah, it fucking sucks, but that’s like. That’s it’s own thing, that’s his thing. Travis is gonna drunk text the shit outta him. 

 

Patty calls while Trav’s in the bathroom, and he nearly drops his phone in the urinal, that’s how fast he tries to answer that shit. He’d recognize that custom ringtone and pick up if he was down ten drinks, balls deep, in the hospital, no matter what. Real ride-or-die stuff. That’s love, baby.

“What’s up?” he says, frantically tapping for the speaker button and trying to do up his fly one handed. Neither works. 

“Didn’t mean to call you,” Patty grumbles, and the reception in this bathroom sucks, and that’s a load of shit. 

“That’s a load of shit,” Travis replies, because he loves to speak his whole truth. “D’you  
miss me this much, buddy?”

“No, moron,” Patty says. He’s probably rolling his eyes. God, Travis loves him so fucking much.

“I love you, dude,” he says, doesn’t give Nolan a chance to say it back because he knows he’s weird about it. “We’re fucking sad, Pats, y’know? We’re all out at the bar and trying to hook up or whatever the hell, fuck the pain away, but we’re just a bunch of sad sacks, yeah?”

Patty hangs up on him. It’s fine, it’s whatever, Travis is too much of a goddamn adult to be broken up over his sad-ass best friend hanging up on a sad-ass dive bar bathroom butt dial. Or, like, he should be. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. 

 

“I don’t want to do shots,” Travis says to the room at large on his way back from crying in the bathroom, flopping inelegantly into the booth next to Carter, who shouldn’t be here, because he’s a baby. A baby genius, like the fuckin’ Patrick Roy of babies, or whatever, and fuck Philly’s liquor laws, and Travis would quite literally kill a man and lay down his own life for Carter, but he’s the baby. The point stands. 

“I do not want to do shots,” Travis repeats to get his thought process back on track, pointing at Carter accusingly. Carter just blinks at him, like he doesn’t know how guilty he is. “I want to be at home, with my wife.” 

“Since when do you have a fuckin’ wife?” Jake asks from behind his beard. 

The last thing Travis sees before resting his head gently on the sticky table is Claude saluting him, one legitimate wife-haver to another. Not that Travis is like, a wife-haver. But he is, like, spiritually. 

“I think he means Pats,” Carter says in like, a scarily conspiratory whisper, and Travis puts 'noogie carter' on his completely organized and comprehensive to do list, right above 'make patty not hate me' and 'learn how to not be a disappointment'.

 

 

All things considered, Travis isn’t like, that drunk by the time G shoves him into an uber with Provy, gives the driver a pityingly gracious look and a $20 tip. He’s like, moderate drunk, by that point. Reasonable levels of drunkness for the situations at hand with his life as a whole. 

So, yeah, he gets into the building alright, and the elevator’s under construction again, because it always is. And he gets sick and tired of dragging his own sorry ass up the stairs after five flights, and that’s Patty’s floor, so he throws the hanging up feelings to the wind and drags his sorry ass down the hall instead of up more stairs. 

let me in :(( he texts Nolan, knocks when he doesn’t get a text back soon enough. It’d be such a pain in the ass if Patty was asleep at 1am for once, like some kinda reasonable person. 

There’s a quiet click as Patty unlocks the door, pulls it open so the warm fuzzy light from the hallway fills just the doorway; he’s just standing there, all tall and responsible and gorgeous, wearing a shapeless grey sweatsuit infused with his own misery. It’s probably Gucci or something, even though fuckin’ Gildan is just as good for, like, $10. Trav’s still cheap like that. He’s got the hood pulled up but his hair’s gotten so long this year, there’s curls peeking out the corners, like he’s got it pushed behind his ears like always but it’s still trying to make an appearance. Travis thinks he’d look bald otherwise, but he’d probably still pull off bald. 

Fucker.

“Can I help you?” Patty asks, because he’s an asshole, because he’s sad, doesn’t know how to deal with that shit on his own. It breaks the silence, at least, even if it breaks Trav’s heart a little bit, too.

“Let me in,” Travis says, not totally sure if Pats read his text. He lets his phone die most days, doesn’t bother texting back, extra when shit’s bad. It’s like any contact with the outside world would kill him. Luckily, Trav can’t be restrained by mortal shit, like doors and locks and emotional boundaries, so. Whatever.

“Why,” Patty says all deadpan, but he looks a little softer at the edges. He always gets nicer, always warms up eventually. 

“I don’t wanna wallow alone, bitch, let me in,” Trav says, bracing himself to like, physically push his way in if needed, he’s a wily bitch, but Nolan lets his shoulders go slack, takes a step back to let him in, all reluctant. 

And they’re quiet, for a little while, of course. It’s late, there’s an air of sadness over the whole room. Hell, all of Philly’s sad, at least all of them that give a shit about a bunch of dirtbags with a shiny silver dream. Travis is pretty sure there’s a few people left who give a damn to keep believing in them, even with how much they suck. That’s nice of them.

So they end up on the couch, sitting too far apart for comfort, when all Trav wants to do is shove his face into the front of Patty’s stupid sweatshirt and wrap him up in his arms until everything stops hurting. Patty’s got the TV on but the volume’s all the way down, as low as it can go without muting, like he always does. He said something about it once, stoned off his ass, about how it’s rude to the people in the show to actually mute it, and Trav laughed so hard he hit his head on the coffee table falling off the couch.

Nothing’s that funny, tonight, but. Y’know. Whatever.

“It’s fucking stupid,” Nolan says, and Trav’s so caught up trying to figure out if he can worm his way across the couch and put his hands in Patty’s sweatshirt pocket to hold his hand that he doesn’t process the words for almost a minute. 

“Yeah it is, Pats,” he says, and makes up his goddamn mind. “C’mere, dude, get over here.”

Nolan just scowls at him, but that’s normal. That’s expected, at this point. Scowly bitch. 

There’s no way to really coherently express what Travis is going for here without being like, ridiculously suggestive, so he just. Leans in and slaps at Pat’s shoulder until he gets a good grip on that stupid Gucci depression sweatsuit, gets a good enough grip to pull him half the way across the couch. God, he’s fuckin’ big, but Trav pulls it off, because he’s dedicated.

Yeah, Nolan grumbles about it, of course he does, but Travis can tell he’s fine with being manhandled. It’s like, manhandling out of love, Trav thinks, and then thinks that’s like, mad horny, and changes his mind.

“Can you just -” Travis says, trying to banish all thoughts of the horny connotations of affectionate manhandling from his shitty little brain. “Lay down on me bud, c’mon. 

“You’re the worst,” Pats says, but he goes for it anyway, kinda leans in and props himself up on his elbows above Trav, like he’s scared to break him. Travis is like, okay, a little horny about that, but it’s irrelevant, and he hits Patty’s arm out from under him so he’ll just kind of. Drop down onto him. Yeah. 

Okay, so Travis saw, like, - so he was on his burner twitter account once, the one he keeps for memes and shit, and he saw this stupid tweet about weighted blankets or something, and he didn’t really get it, but it like. It stuck with him, man. And - the point is, Patty’s like that, at this point, and Trav can’t think of anything he’d want more in the world than his fuckin’ giant best friend crushing all the air out of him at one in the morning on a Saturday while the world feels like it’s ending. 

“We don’t need to talk about it,” Travis says, instead of calling Patty a sexy weighted blanket to his face. He can be serious. “Not if you don’t want to. It’s okay,”

“It’s fine,” Pats says, mumbly like usual, with his head resting on Trav’s shoulder, staring off into space. From here, it looks like he’s been crying. 

“You’re the best,” Trav says, and he gets his arm pulled out from under himself enough to reach up into the hood on Nolan’s sweatshirt, tangle his fingers up in his greasy hair and scratch at his scalp. He’s trying to be comforting, but it feels weird, like he’s petting a big dog, and maybe Pats is just kinda like a big dog. A big, sad, handsome dog. 

God, he’s gotta drop the dog metaphor if his brain is gonna be traitorously in love. 

“You’re the fucking best,” he says again, to distract himself. “We’re the best, Nol. We’re going to be the best.” 

And Nolan laughs a little at that, thank god, and he rubs at his eyes, like he’s trying not to cry. Travis isn’t sure if it would be okay, to tell him that it’d be okay, if he did. If he had to cry, that would be fine, even if he got Trav’s shirt all weird and wet with his tears. It’d be okay. 

He puts his cold fucking hand on Trav’s neck, gets his fingertips under the collar of his shirt, and when Travis shivers he’s pretty sure it’s just because Pat’s hands are stupid cold. 

“We’re gonna be the best,” Patty repeats, digging his nails into Travis’ shoulder a little bit. “You and me, Teeks. We’re gonna be the best. We already are.”


End file.
